Azerbaijan Airlines on Way to Russia Crash, At least 30 Killed

Manas Dasgupta

NEW DELHI, Dec 25: A passenger plane en route to Russia from Azerbaijan carrying 67 passengers, including five crew members, crashed near Kazakhstan’s Aktau area killing at least 30 people.

Authorities said 32 people have survived the crash and at least 29 of them including an 11 year old girl and 16-year old boy have been admitted in the hospital, the country’s Emergencies Ministry said on Wednesday.

Russian media quoted medical workers as saying that four bodies have been recovered and emergency workers at the scene as saying that both pilots, according to a preliminary assessment, died in the crash.

In a brief statement, Azerbaijan Airlines confirmed the crash on its Instagram handle. “The Embraer 190 aircraft operated by Azerbaijan Airlines, flight numbered J2-8243 on the Baku-Grozny route, made an emergency landing approximately 3 kilometres near the city of Aktau. Additional information regarding the incident will be provided to the public,” it said.

Russia’s aviation watchdog said in a statement that preliminary information suggested the pilot had decided to make an emergency landing after a bird strike. However, authorities are looking into different possible versions of what had happened, including a technical problem.

Kazakhstan’s Emergency Ministry initially said 25 people survived the crash, later revising that number to 32 as the search and rescue operation continued at the site of the crash, bringing the supposed death toll down.

The plane was originally scheduled to travel from the Azerbaijani capital of Baku to the Russian city of Grozny in the North Caucasus. According to Azerbaijan Airlines, 37 passengers were Azerbaijani citizens. There were also 16 Russian nationals, six Kazakhstani and three Kyrgyzstani citizens, it said.

Russia’s Civil Aviation Authority, Rosaviatsia, said preliminary information showed that the pilot had chosen to divert to Aktau after a bird strike on the aircraft led to “an emergency situation on board.” Mobile phone footage circulating online appeared to show the aircraft making a steep descent before smashing into the ground in a fireball. Other footage showed part of its fuselage ripped away from the wings and the rest of the aircraft, lying upside in the grass. The footage corresponded to the plane’s colours and its registration number.

Some of the videos posted on social media showed survivors dragging fellow passengers away from the wreckage of the plane. Flight-tracking data from FlightRadar24.com showed the aircraft making what appeared to be a figure-right once nearing the airport in Aktau, its altitude moving up and down substantially over the last minutes of the flight before impacting the ground.

FlightRadar24 separately said in an online post that the aircraft had faced “strong GPS jamming” which “made the aircraft transmit bad ADS-B data,” referring to the information that allows flight-tracking websites to follow planes in flight. Russia has been blamed in the past for jamming GPS transmissions in the wider region.

Fog at the destination is believed to have caused the flight to be re-routed to Aktau, which is around 1,800 km away. However, as the plane approached Aktau International Airport an (as yet) unspecified crisis triggered an emergency landing request. Tragically the Embraer ERJ-190 aircraft never made it that far. Initial reports suggest the plane was hit by a flock of birds, causing a possible steering malfunction and/or damaging one engine. The pilots tried to regain speed and altitude but the controls failed.

It crashed around three km from the airport; horrific videos on social media picked up the plane in a nosedive, losing altitude rapidly, slamming into the ground, and bursting into flames. Among the many videos being shared online is one that zooms in on the clearly-struggling plane; in the video, the plane appears to jerk up and down mid-air a few times, and even seemed to regain control momentarily, gaining altitude, before it all went horribly wrong.

In the 36 seconds of the two-and-a-half minute video the plane goes into a steep dive, tilting to its right as it hits the ground, bursts into flames, and breaks into pieces. The plane’s course on online flight tracking website Flight Radar showed it crossing the Caspian Sea, veering from its normal route and then circling over the area where it eventually crashed.

Pictures from the crash site revealed a horrific scene – pieces of the fuselage and tail were scattered across a remote and dusty field distinguished by a dirt road zig-zagging through it.

Azerbaijan’s state news agency, Azertac, said an official delegation consisting of Azerbaijan’s emergency situations minister, the country’s deputy general prosecutor, and the vice president of Azerbaijan Airlines had been dispatched to Aktau to conduct an “on-site investigation.”

The President’s press service said Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev, who had been travelling to St Petersburg in Russia, returned to Azerbaijan on hearing news of the crash. Mr Aliyev was due to attend an informal meeting of leaders of the Commonwealth of Independent States, a bloc of former Soviet countries founded after the collapse of the Soviet Union.

Russian President Vladimir Putin spoke to Aliyev on the phone and expressed his condolences, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters. Both Kazakhstani and Azerbaijani authorities were investigating the crash. Embraer said in a statement that the company was “ready to assist all relevant authorities.”